Ford celebrates the 80th anniversary of its ute -- the forerunner of
modern pickup trucks -- based on the first sale to a Melbourne-area farmer
in February 1934

Feb. 26, 2014: A 23-year-old Ford Australia designer created the ute by listening to
the farming family’s request for a vehicle with more utility
Ford’s truck teams translate customer needs into innovations more
than ever, including the all-new 2015 F-150 with high-strength,
military-grade, aluminum alloys throughout the body Ford sold more than one
million pickups globally in 2013 based on Ranger growth in Asia,
F-Series’ 37th straight year as America’s best-selling truck
and the “International Pick-Up Award 2013” in Europe

Ford is celebrating the 80th anniversary of its Australian invention of
the iconic ute, which led to the development of vehicles such as the
F-Series and Ranger and propelled the company to years of truck
leadership.

Not only was it an Australian invention, but the concept has been
exported to the world, reinterpreted by other manufacturers and gained a
legion of fans everywhere.

The story of the first Ford ute is a key part of Ford’s rich
heritage that has seen the development of such iconic vehicles as the
F-Series.

Farming roots

Like all good ideas, the first integrated passenger-car based Ute was
born out of necessity, very much like the first Model T Ford.

In mid-1933 the then managing director of the Ford Motor Company of
Australia, Hubert French, received a letter from a farmer’s wife in
Gippsland, Victoria.

She wrote: “My husband and I can’t afford a car and a truck
but we need a car to go to church on Sunday and a truck to take the pigs to
market on Monday. Can you help?” What the customer wanted was a
vehicle with passenger car comfort but could also carry loads.

French passed the letter on to a young design engineer, Lewis (Lew)
Bandt, who had joined the company only a few years previously as
Ford’s only designer. Bandt was just 23 years old but was already
showing a flair for design for which he was to become quite famous until he
retired in 1975.

Bandt died in 1987, after being involved in an accident driving a
restored version of the Utility he helped make famous.

Bandt’s take on the passenger car-based utility was considered
revolutionary at the time. Until the early 1930s, many auto manufacturers
and vehicle body builders had constructed wooden or metal
‘utility’ bodies on car chassis. Henry Ford’s Model T was
a particular favourite and Ford T “Buckboards” and
“Utility Runabouts” were to be found on farms and delivering
goods in towns and cities throughout the world.

The ute is Born

Where Bandt’s design differed was that he developed his Ford
utility as a coupe (two-passenger, steel-paneled, glass-windowed car) with
an integrated steel-paneled load carrying section at the rear. What Bandt
did was to blend the ‘pickup’ sides into a coupe body, which
provided a cleaner profile and increased the load area behind the
cabin.

Bandt sketched out his ute on a 10 metre blackboard, giving it a 545
kilogram (1200-pound) payload on a wheelbase of 2845 mm (9 feet, 4
inches).

He completed his original design in October, 1933, and quickly produced
two prototypes for testing. By January 23, 1934, he had the final drawings
and the new Ford ute went into production with Bandt christening his design
a ‘coupe-utility’. When the first utes came off the production
line in 1934 two were sent to Canada. The car even caught the eye of Henry
Ford.

Bandt’s original full-scale blueprint drawings of the 1934 coupe
utility are now archived in Australia and the rebuilt version of the Bandt
coupe-utility is – appropriately – housed in a museum in the
rural country Victorian town of Chewton, near Melbourne.

In its day, the Ford coupe-utility boasted a V8 engine and three-speed
manual gearbox while its suspension was by transverse leaf springs with
shock absorbers at the front and heavy duty semi-elliptic rear springs and
shock absorbers at the rear.

The cabin was the same as the four-door Model 40 Ford five-window coupe.
But, instead of the rear luggage compartment or ‘dicky seat’,
Bandt added a wooden-framed utility section with steel outer panels welded
to the coupe body to form a smooth-sided vehicle.

The result was quickly hailed as the ‘must have’ vehicle for
the rural communities and 22,000 were sold between 1940 and 1954.

Lew Bandt’s daughter, Dr Ros Bandt said it was her father’s
stunning foresight to marry beautiful design and on-the-ground practicality
and make it available to all Ford customers.

“I can't imagine what it must have been like in this pressured
war-torn time in the 1930s to have the vision to create an affordable Ute
on the land to help with everyday tasks, both work and play and be able to
connect over distance,” Dr Bandt said.

“Dad created a brilliant stylish workhorse, which is the legacy he
has left to all farmers and owners who enjoy and depend on their utes
worldwide. In his words; he wanted the farmer's wife and the pigs to have a
glorious ride.”

Lewis Bandt’s coupe utility was a first for Ford Australia and his
ingenuity had a great impact on the then developing Australia auto
industry.

The original Bandt-designed Ford ute paved the way for what has morphed
into what has become some of the world’s biggest selling vehicles
– the Pickup or utility. It also spawned the Falcon ute, which has
been a firm favourite with customers since the first Falcon XK ute was
launched in 1961.

In total, Ford Australia has sold more than 455,000 Falcon utes, among
the most popular being the Falcon XB, XF II, AU II, BA and current FG
models.

The Australian designed and developed Ford Ranger is also widely sold in
more than 180 different countries.

Global truck leadership

Ford sold more than one million trucks globally in 2013, building on the
company’s truck leadership that includes:

Ford pickups globally represent one out of every five pickups sold
F-Series is the best-selling vehicle in the history of the pickup truck
industry with more than 33 million trucks sold – twice as many as the
No. 2 vehicle, the Model T (16.5 million) F-Series became the world’s
best-selling truck in the United States for the 37th consecutive year and
the best-selling vehicle in the country for the 32th straight year Ranger
achieved best-ever sales and was Ford’s best-selling vehicle across
the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 2013 and earned
“International Pick-Up Award 2013” in Europe Ranger was the
best-selling vehicle overall in Vietnam, saw sales rise 43 per cent in
Thailand and is challenging to become New Zealand’s top-selling truck
by overtaking Toyota HiLux in sales six months in the past two years

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